How to Read Club Ready Music Cue Points From the Comment Tag and Cue Sheet

Club Ready Music writes its cue points as plain text you can read in any tag editor: a DJ edit carries them in the ID3 comment tag, in the form 126 BPM, . Cues: start 0:00.000; intro end 0:30.476; outro start 3:12.000, and a studio track's DJ pack includes a cue points.txt file with one m:ss.mmm line per cue. Studio MP3s also embed Serato hot cues, but DJ edits do not, so for an edit the comment tag is the cue sheet. Because every intro and outro is an exact bar count, you can check any time with one formula: bar length in seconds is 240 divided by the BPM.

Steps

1. Open the comment tag of a DJ edit

Load the MP3 320 into Mp3tag or Kid3, or look at the comment column in Serato or the Information pane in rekordbox. The comment on a Club Ready Music DJ edit reads like 126 BPM, . Cues: start 0:00.000; intro end 0:30.476; outro start 3:12.000. The number before BPM is the tempo of the finished file, which is the target tempo if you used Shift tempo to. The three cues are start, intro end and outro start, each as minutes, seconds and milliseconds.

2. Open cue points.txt from a studio DJ pack

Unzip the DJ pack from a studio track. Alongside the MP3, the cover JPEG, rekordbox.xml and README.txt you will find cue points.txt. It lists the BPM, the key as Camelot, Open Key and musical name, the intro and outro bar counts, and then each cue as m:ss.mmm followed by its name. Studio cues are start, vocal in when known, intro end, first drop and outro start. The MP3's own comment tag is shorter, for example 8A · 1m · A minor · 126 BPM · intro 16 · outro 32 · Club Ready Music, so the text file is the full sheet.

3. Work out the bar length

Divide 240 by the BPM. At 126 BPM a bar is 1.905 seconds; at 128 it is 1.875 seconds; at 124 it is 1.935 seconds. This single number lets you verify or regenerate every Club Ready Music cue, because intros and outros are whole bars from the first beat. Write it down before you start placing cues.

4. Check intro end

Multiply the intro bars by the bar length. A 16-bar intro at 126 BPM is 16 × 1.905, which is 30.476 seconds, written 0:30.476 in the comment. An 8-bar intro at 128 BPM is 15.000 seconds, and a 32-bar intro at 124 BPM is 61.935 seconds. If the comment tag and your arithmetic agree, the grid is trustworthy and the cue will land on a downbeat.

5. Check outro start

Take the total length of the file and subtract outro bars times the bar length. If the edit is 4:12.952 long and the outro is 32 bars at 126 BPM, outro start is 252.952 minus 60.952, which is 192.000 seconds, or 3:12.000. For a 64-bar outro the subtraction is twice as large. The result panel's Outro button jumps to two seconds before this point so you can hear the vocals and melodic parts fade over the first two bars of the outro.

6. Enter the cues in your software

Convert each m:ss.mmm value to the format your software expects. Most cue editors accept minutes and seconds with a decimal fraction, so 0:30.476 becomes 30.476 seconds. In Serato, set hot cues in the Cue panel; in rekordbox, use memory cues or hot cues at those positions; in Traktor and VirtualDJ, use the Cue panel or POI editor. Place cue 1 at intro end and cue 2 at outro start, and for studio tracks add first drop and vocal in from the text file.

7. Snap to the grid

Once the cue is roughly placed, enable grid snapping in your software and nudge the cue to the nearest downbeat. Because Club Ready Music edits start at the first beat and use exact bar counts, the snapped position should match the comment time to within a few milliseconds. If it does not, the software's own BPM analysis disagrees with the tag, and you should lock the BPM to the tagged value first.

Tips

• Round bar length to three decimals in your head, but let the comment tag carry the exact value. Club Ready Music writes milliseconds so the cues sit exactly on the rendered grid.
• When you used Shift tempo to, do the maths with the target BPM. The intro end and outro start scale with the stretch, and the comment tag already reflects the shifted file.
• The two cues on a DJ edit are the two points you mix on. Cue 1 at intro end is where the song proper begins; cue 2 at outro start is where to bring the next track in.
• Studio tracks already carry Serato hot cues with colours, so in Serato you only need the text sheet for software that ignores GEOB frames.
• Keep cue points.txt next to the MP3 in your library folder. It costs nothing and saves retyping when you re-import on a new laptop.

Common problems

• The comment shows a tempo different from the song. You shifted the tempo. The comment reports the output tempo, and the cue times are for the stretched file, so use them as written.
• Your software reports a different BPM and the cues drift. Its analysis picked half or double tempo or a slightly different value. Set the BPM to the tagged TBPM and lock it before placing cues.
• No cue points appear automatically on a DJ edit. That is expected. Only studio tracks embed Serato hot cues; DJ edits give you the times in the comment tag to enter by hand.
• The outro cue lands a bar late. Check the total length you used. The subtraction must use the length of the edit, including the appended drum tail, not the length of the original song.